How to Bring More Prospects Through Your Funnel

You want to convert more leads faster. But the rising cost of leads is killing your CPA, which, in turn, is preventing you from bringing more prospects through your funnel.

So you burn through leads faster and faster to offset the damage.

The problem is you’re dialing your lists so aggressively that prospects have stopped picking up the phone. Your connection rates have tanked and your sales have dropped by an ungodly amount. That’s when it finally hits home. You don’t put a Band-Aid on a bullet wound and expect the bleeding to stop.

And now for the cold water. Buying trends have changed dramatically over the last few years.

For starters, consumers want to buy on their own terms—not yours. They expect–and want–the buying process to be straightforward and direct.

What’s more, they want to be able to enter the buying funnel from any number of entrance points—not just through the top.

So what does this mean for your contact center? Simple. If you want to increase sales, then you must forget everything you know about lead conversion.

Call Fewer Leads

Let’s be honest. The real reason you’ve cranked up the dial level is because your agents aren’t getting prospects on the line. This, of course, can happen for any number of reasons. The most common of which is over dialing.

Picture it. You’ve called the same prospects from sunup to sundown—scheduling a call or 50 every hour over a 13-hour period (for days, weeks, and months on end).

And they aren’t very happy about it.

Neither are their phone carriers. You know, the big Tier 1 guys that use advanced blocking solutions to stop telemarketers like you from over dialing their users.

You want to protect your caller ID reputation and avoid being flagged by top-tier carriers.

Go Granular

And that’s exactly why your next move—and it’s a mission critical one—should be to run a status report on all your lists.

First, check whether your lists have a high percentage of “bad” leads (i.e., disconnected numbers, dropped calls due to network congestion, or numbers listed on the National Do Not Call list).

Run your lists using a trusted lead distribution software program. We recommend LeadsPedia, and are a systems integration partner with them, but there are a number of options out there.

Combining the power of lead distribution software AND an advanced omnichannel dialer lets you take corrective action in real time to improve your lead conversion rates—based on real events like high call congestion or answering machines.

For example, you may want to:

Prioritize lead sellers with a good reputation—even if it means increasing your spend

You may not be accustomed to taking a granular look at your data. But it’s one of the most effective ways of identifying and removing “bad” leads from your campaigns in real time.

And traditionally speaking, the more you call a list, the less likely it is to convert. Prioritizing lists that have previously produced sales or “successes” will better enable you to maximize your sales opportunities. In addition, we recommend creating lists for your lead sources. This will allow you to track the ones that perform the best.

The old paradigm of burning through leads—and the money it costs you to buy them—has shifted. Today, you’re able to track, measure, and analyze your leads in real time. And with a more accurate analysis of your lead quality, you can contact less leads for better results.

Be Precise in your Outreach

To reduce your CPA, you must be willing to adapt to the changing ways in which consumers want to be contacted, such as text and email. This lets you create a range of entrance points for prospects to enter your funnel.

This could mean integrating 2-way text messaging and automated email marketing into your cold calling campaign or setting up events and triggers for future outreach. So rather than slamming prospects with calls from sunup to sundown, you’re taking a more effective approach toward getting leads in your funnel.

Prevailing wisdom has shown that calling and leaving a voicemail on day one, sending a text message on day two, and sending an email on day three offers the variety of touchpoints you need to engage prospects the right way.

This may seem arduous, but with Convoso you can scale your outreach and connect with more leads faster—without adding an extra layer of manual, repetitive work to your normal processes.

Get the Business Results You Want

And now for the takeaway.

Lead quality matters. That’s why we encourage you to focus on calling leads that have been verified, analyzed, and tracked for success. More importantly, we encourage you to prioritize leads that are a good match for your product or service. This might sound simple, but you’d be surprised how easy it is to overlook.

All in all, prioritizing lead performance for improved success puts you in a better position to bring more prospects through your funnel, which means higher conversion rates, a higher ROI, and a lower cost per acquisition (CPA).

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